They’re from different decades and different political parties. They speak and work in different
styles. They faced different challenges.

But the three living men who’ve occupied the same corner office of Columbus City Hall agreed on
one thing last night: They’ve had the best job possible.

“At one time I thought of running for higher office, then I thought better,” Mayor Michael B.
Coleman said last night at a Columbus Metropolitan Club forum where he shared the stage with former
Mayors Greg Lashutka and Dana G. “Buck” Rinehart.

Coleman has said repeatedly since his aborted Democratic run for governor in 2005 that he no
longer harbors ambitions for higher office. He’s on track to become the longest-serving mayor in
Columbus history, midway through his current four-year term.

“I love being mayor,” said Coleman, 57. “In this city, you know what you’ve done. You see the
results.”

Lashutka, who was elected in 1991 and retired from office after Coleman’s election in 1999, said
he views his time in office as an honor.

Rinehart, a Republican who was elected in 1983 and retired when Lashutka, also a Republican, was
sworn in, lived up to his forum introduction as a mayor who was “colorful.”

Columbus is a city where things work well, he said.

“You’d have to really screw up to screw up,” said Rinehart, 66, who now runs his own law
firm.

Coleman recalled two times when he sought the help of his predecessors. Lashutka was one of the
first people who called and asked what he could do after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. When
Coleman championed a 2009 referendum to raise the city’s income tax, he said he sought and received
Rinehart’s public endorsement.

Lashutka, 68, said he has tried to stay out of local politics since he left office. He first
worked as a senior vice president for Nationwide Insurance and now works for Findley Davis, a
human-resources consulting firm.

“When you leave, you should leave,” he said. “You want to respond when asked, but not put your
nose in when you shouldn’t.”

He did have one piece of commentary, though. Lashutka said he doesn’t much care for Coleman’s
often-repeated line that he wants Columbus to have “swagger.”

“I’m not sure about the ‘swagger’ idea,” he said.

“Believe me, we need it, Greg,” Coleman joked.

Coleman compared his “swagger” comment to the late Mayor M.E. “Jack” Sensenbrenner’s word
spizzerinctum, which he would say meant having the will and energy to succeed.

“That’s not very good, either,” Lashutka said with a laugh.

All three mayors credited government employees for keeping the city operating. Rinehart, though,
took sole credit for one of the most infamous moments of his eight years in office — when he swung
a wrecking ball into the old Ohio Penitentiary in 1990, before the city even owned the place.

It was eventually taken down in 1997 to make way for the Arena District.